Stumbling, Tripping, Slipping
by onlyfrequency
Summary: She doesn't want anyone to know she's tired. They've already seen her fall apart, seen the numerous cracks in her flawed armor. So she finds her own way forward, her reason for continuing.


**Disclaimer;** I don't own Bleach. 'nuff said.

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She's tired. She's known it for a while, been aware of how heavy her body feels, how weighted her heart is, how hard it is to stand, to sit, to lay down and get back up again. 

Every day she does so anyway.

She doesn't want anyone to know she's tired. They've already seen her fall apart, seen the numerous cracks in her flawed armor. If they knew what she was going through now, it could shatter the last traces of trust they had in her.

Because she's finally stopped asking them to save Aizen.

Her stomach hurts too much to keep begging for his life, and her soul can't take much more of the looks Hitsugaya gave her. Nor the ones from Kira and Abarai. And especially not from Hisagi.

So she stifles the yawn, signs the paper, works dilligently. Guides her hands forward and back, says the words clearly and controls the reiatsu perfectly, shows her division exactly why, above all else, she is a kidou master. She reminds her division why she is, next to that, a vice captain, no mere puppet put in place, her zanpakuto fierce in it's apathy as it slices through the training. The rumours of her as merely a pawn evaporated in the face of her determination to hold onto her badge.

She is never late to meetings. She is always prepared, always alert. But she is slipping, and she knows it.

She clings to the strength she puts forward, but it's starting to shake. She refuses to move beyond the badge, to work on appointing a new captain. It's still too soon, always too soon. The division is working fine without one right now, don't push your luck. Don't rush them. They've been betrayed.

She's been betrayed.

There's still fighting to do. Fighting she has accepted, but questions her ability to take. In the face of the person that meant everything to her, her guard will shatter. She knows that as surely as she knows she is lucky to still be alive.

The faint hope that she is alive because he wanted her to be surfaces again, but it is with a roar and a whimper that she extinguishes it, hand straying to Tobiume.

She's seen the medical report.

Her smile is a rare thing these days, but those that manage to find themselves graced with it all agree that though it is somewhat harsher, less jaded, it is still hers. As surely as they know her from her sing-song voice, as surely as they recognized her light pace and cheerful greetings in previous days. Before this, before war, before she picked up Tobiume in the name of revenge and fighting and shattered her heart.

She's tired to making everyone see that she can manage. Tired of thinking that her actions are just a flimsy facade, the single drop in the ocean, the tiniest grain of sand.

She wishes she didn't have to work so hard, but she knows that if she doesn't she'll fall back. She'll believe in him again and find herself unwilling to continue, unwilling to pursue the future that used to look so bright.

It can still be bright, she tells herself. Her actions will determine what becomes of her, her strength will guide and save her.

Sometimes she slips, and they look questioningly at her use of third person. She only uses it when she talks about the old her, the infatuated her, the fool. But she's still the fool, and she knows this, knows that his name and face can bring her fragile, reconstructed world crashing down again.

She moves, and Tobiume follows, the silent partner in the mental torment she inflicts upon herself, constantly second guessing all her decisions and reliving those moments, Kira, Hitsugaya, Aizen. Each one tore her heart apart, shook her to the core as surely as she had feared for her life that day with Hisagi. But she treasures those moments, because she has lived through them. That alone is enough.

Her life is enough.

One day, she'll let them push her to allow for the appointment of a captain for her division. One day, she'll move past her badge. Tobiume already asks her to, soft and pleading at night when they are alone, the gentle spirit becoming the warmth beside her as she slumbers. One day, the war will end, and she won't have to think of that person as another her. One day, she'll simply be, all the good and all the bad in one person who is not tired and does not falter, does not slip.

She stumbles but rights herself easily enough, refusing to turn to anyone else for help. The cracks show, and she knows it, but she works hard for the cracks to only reveal another layer of armor.

Aizen taught her well, and in some ways that is why she has still held on, despite the pain of turning from him, the rejection of her ideal. She believed in the world once, still believes in a peaceful solution. She is a dreamer, but she knows how to survive.

She used to be content, and now she feels want. It burns in a way that Tobiume never did, kidou never did, her childish aspirations never did.

There is no pure world for her, and she knows that, has known for years and decades but will only now admit it.

But as scared as she may be at the potential outcomes of what is coming, no matter how safe she may find herself with friends, subordinates, no matter how ready she is or unprepared she may be in the face of all she used to know, there is one thing she knows above all else.

She is alive, and somehow that pushes her forward, allows her to remain, remind, train, be.

Hinamori stumbles, falls, slips, trips, and dies every day with every movement and stifled yawn, with every tired drop of her eyes. But she has a secret weapon in the face of all her fears.

She is alive.

And that allows her to falter, knowing that she will stand again.


End file.
